Dunn v. Campo

179 So. 102
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 21, 1938
DocketNo. 16613.
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 179 So. 102 (Dunn v. Campo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dunn v. Campo, 179 So. 102 (La. Ct. App. 1938).

Opinion

WESTERFIELD, Judge.

This is a suit by Olva C. Dunn against Joseph Achary, Cosimo Campo, and the Employers Liability Assurance Corporation, Limited, of London, England, for damages for physicial injuries received in an automobile accident on June 6, 1934. The American Liability Insurance Company intervened in the proceeding and prayed for judgment in its favor against the same defendants for the sum of $1,-073.16, the amount alleged to have been paid to Dunn, the plaintiff, as workman’s compensation.

In the District Court there was judgment in favor of the plaintiff in the sum of $500 and in favor of the American Mutual Liability Insurance Company for the amount prayed for against Joseph Achary and Cosimo Campo in solido. The suit as against the Employers Liability Assurance Corporation, Limited, of London, England, was dismissed. Cosimo Campo, one of the two defendants condemned below, has appealed to this Court.

There is practically no dispute as to the facts. Cosimo Campo, a retail grocer in the city of New Orleans, whose place of business is located on the corner of St. Claude avenue and Clouet street, employed John Achary, a minor, twenty years of age, as a delivery boy. Campo was a customer of H. Grabenheimer & Sons, Inc. Cyril Farina, a salesman in the employ of H. Grabenheimer & Sons, Inc., called on Campo on the date of the accident on business of his employer. While in Campo’s place of business, Achary, who had a few deliveries to make for Campo, borrowed from Farina his employer’s automobile in which Farina had driven to Campo’s store. Achary used the Grabenheimer automobile to deliver packages for Campo and while on this errand ran into a parked truck belonging to the Louisiana Baking Company and operated by the plaintiff, Olva C. Dunn. The truck, at the time of the accident, was parked on the corner of De- ' sire and N. Johnson streets, facing the Mississippi river on Desire street, and the plaintiff, Dunn, was standing at the rear of the truck removing some cakes for the purpose of making delivery to a customer of his employer. Dunn was quite seriously injured, suffering a fracture of the spine and of the tibia of his left leg and contusions and brush burns of both legs. He sued for $14,042.49 as damages.

Campo did not use an automobile in connection with his business which was largely of the “cash and carry” nature, such deliveries as were made were effected by Achary, as a rule, on. foot, and occasionally, when the packages were large or numerous, by means o,f a wheelbarrow furnished by Campo for that purpose.

The Employers'Liability Assurance Corporation, Limited, of London, England, was the underwriter of the public liability *104 of H. Grabenheimér & Sons, Inc., and was made defendant in this suit upon the ground that Grabenheimer’s employee, Farina, acting in the scope of his employment and in the furtherance of his employer’s business, had loaned its automobile to John Achary with the consent and permission of his employer.

Joseph Achary, the father of John Ach-ary, was made defendant upon the ground that he was responsible for the tortious acts of his minor >son. Joseph Achary failed to answer and made no appeara'nce in the suit and judgment was rendered against him by default and no appeal has been taken.

In regard to the Employers Liability Assurance Corporation, Limited, of London, England, there is no evidence in the record to substantiate the contention that its insured knew of or consented to the lending of its automobile to Achary. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary. The judgment dismissing this defendant is correct.

It is admitted that John Achary’s negligence was the sole cause of the accident which resulted in the injury to plaintiff which forms the basis of this suit.

The sole issue, therefore, is whether Achary’s employer, Campo, is responsible. Article 2320 of the Revised Civil Code reads in part as follows:

“Masters and employers are answerable for the damage occasioned by their servants and overseers, in the exercise of the functions in which they are employed.”
We are aware of no case iri this juris-' diction and we have been referred to none which is directly in point, though the doctrine of respondeat superior has been many times discussed in the numerous cases in which it has been invoked.

In a very early case, that of Winston v. Foster, 5 Rob. 113, it was said

“The defendants are answerable for the damage occasioned by the acts of those they have employed, and cannot excuse themselves on the plea, that those acts were done contrary to their instructions, and without their knowledge. Civil Code art. 2299.”

The following quotation from Corpus Juris, vol. 39, p. 1286, is called to our attention:

“If the master undertakes to determine for himself the manner in which his servants shall perform his prescribed duties, the obligatiqn is on him to see that such instructions are carried out and that the servant does not substitute his own methods for those of his master. Any other rule, it has been said, would in a measure nullify the doctrine of respondeat superior.”

See, also, Lerner Shops of Alabama v. Riddle, 231 Ala. 270; 164 So. 385, and Florida Dairies Company v. Rogers, 119 Fla. 451, 161 So. 85.

The foregoing and other authorities sustain the proposition that an employee who violates an order or.a rule of his employer with respect to the manner of discharging some function of his employment in furtherance of the master’s business would not, on that account, be regarded as out of character as an employee so as to relieve his master of responsibility for his tortious conduct. For example, if Campo had instructed Achary to make no deliveries between the hours of 10 and 12 in the morning and he, in violation of such instructions, had undertaken to make deliveries during those hours and had run down Dunn with an automobile provided by Campo for use in making the deliveries, Campo would, nevertheless, be liable for his servant’s negligence in injuring Dunn, though the errand was undertaken in defiance of a standing order of Campo. Similarly, if Achary had used the wheelbarrow provided by Campo and intended only for use in the delivery of numerous or heavy parcels, for a few small packages, and while on such an errand had run into and injured a child playing on the sidewalk, it might well be said that though the wheelbarrow was provided by his employer for a different purpose than that for which it was used at the time of the accident and to that extent Achary’s conduct was unauthorized by his master, that, nevertheless, Campo would be responsible.

Beyond this, the doctrine invoked has not been extended so far as we know, unless the case of Frenyea v. Maine Steel Products Company, 132 Me. 271, 170 A. 515, 516, can be said to have sanctioned further expansion. The facts in that case are as follows: The Maine Steel Products Company sold some snow plows to the highway department of the state of Vermont, together with deflectors with which they' were to be equipped. The factory sent a mechanic from its factory in Maine to Montpelier, Vt., where the deflectors *105 had been shipped by rail and where they were located in the state garage.

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179 So. 102, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dunn-v-campo-lactapp-1938.